


Drabbles and Ficlets

by wolvenkings



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-09 07:49:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolvenkings/pseuds/wolvenkings
Summary: i decided to start publishing a drabble a day. the only way to get better at something is to keep doing it, right?





	1. The Dare

**Author's Note:**

> i decided to start publishing a drabble a day. the only way to get better at something is to keep doing it, right?

_Tap_.

Eddie winced as the pebble smacked against the glass, his temper flaring with every _tap tap tap_. If he were not so busy enjoying the latest issue of Spider-Man (enjoying here meaning glaring unseeing at the same page for nearly an hour) he might have given Richie his due. He’d been at it for several minutes and hadn’t stopped yet but that was probably because he was a big stubborn idiot who didn’t know when to quit.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Eddie sighed and let the comic slide from his hands. He knew he’d have to face him eventually but that didn’t mean that eventually had to be right then. He’d just wind up making a fool of himself and he had been more than enough of that for one evening.

_Tap. Tap._

This time Eddie snarled, on his feet before even he realized it, and flung open the window.

“Go _away,_ Richie,” he hissed but it was too late. Richie was already half way on the roof, having scaled the house like the selfish ass of a baboon that he was.

Eddie glowered at him and crossed his arms defensively and briefly considered shutting the window in his face but then Richie would just start knocking.

“Not until you talk to me,” Richie bargained, not even a little out of breath from his climb. There was no justice in the world.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Eddie snapped, his mouth in a tight line. Hot tears threatened at the back of his eyes and he found himself looking up, looking anywhere but at Richie’s dumb face.

It was a lie, of course. He had tons to say, but he didn’t know how to say any of it without possibly losing his bestfriend and he just, well, he’d been mad all afternoon but now he was just tired.

“Well maybe I do,” Richie tried to crane his neck to be in Eddie’s line of sight but Eddie only held his eyes higher.

“Shocker,” Eddie bit out and wondered briefly if he’d go to prison for shoving Richie off the roof but one thought of prison shower floors pushed that thought from his mind.

“Eddie, I’m sorry,” Richie began but for some reason that just irritated Eddie even more.

“Don’t be,” he said venomously, “It was just a dare. Just like you said. A dare. Because the only way that you could _possibly_ even _want_ to kiss me is on a dare, right? And of course you didn’t stop to think about how _I_ might feel about that, did you? No one likes being kissed on a dare, Richie. You can’t just do that to someone, you can’t just do that to _me._ And don’t call me Eddie just because I’m mad at you.”

His eyes were wet, but he didn’t care anymore.

“Wait- so you don’t want me to call you Eddie now?”

“ _Richie.”_

“Sorry.” At least Richie had the good sense to look remorseful. He was silent for a beat, probably longer than he had ever been in his whole entire stupid life and Eddie was just about to give up and shut the window when he mumbled.

“Excuse me?” He demanded, hating how shrill his voice became when he was upset.

“I said it wasn’t really a dare,” Richie blurted. “I just panicked is all.”

“ _You_ panicked?” Eddie was doing his best to remain cross but a glimmer of hope bloomed in his chest. It hadn’t been a dare?

 

“Are you going to let me tell the story or not?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“ _Fine.”_

 

Richie sighed. “Look, you’re my bestfriend, you know? And I didn’t mean to kiss you, it just sorta happened. Jesus fuck, Eddie, will you stop glaring at me? Just because I didn’t mean to doesn’t mean that I didn’t _want_ to. I just...we were all having so much fun, you know? You were laughing and you looked at me and I just? I just went for it and then I saw your face and you looked so shocked and I realized what I’d done and I thought maybe you would hate me and I just said the first thing that I could think of to make it go away.”

 

“That was quite a story. Did you even breathe once? Need to use my inhaler?”

 

“ _Eddie!_ ” Richie sighed but he dared a smile when he saw that Eddie’s anger had somewhat faded and that he was poorly attempting to hide a smile himself.

 

“Do you want it to go away?” Eddie asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. He was suddenly very interested in the imaginary dirt beneath his fingernails, afraid to see the rejection on Richie’s face.

 

“Do you?” Richie countered.

 

“I asked you first.” Eddie insisted.

 

“Yeah, well. Maybe I don’t.”

 

“Well maybe I don’t either,” Eddie huffed.

 

“Well, good.” Richie said, sort of unsure if they were still fighting or not.  “I’m glad.”

 

“Me too,” Eddie said pointedly, still glaring despite the smile that threatened to bloom on his lips.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Fine,” Eddie agreed.

“Does this mean I can take you to the movies this weekend? You know...just us?” He ventured hopefully.

 

“Sure does.” Eddie bit his lip to keep from smiling, very intent on at least feigning irritation .

 

“Okay,” the visible relief on Richie’s face threatened to undo him. “Good. What do you wanna see?”

 

“Doesn’t matter. You pick.” Eddie shrugged, “But nothing that’s showing in auditorium two. They never clean the floors in there.”

 

“We’ll figure it out later.” Richie smiled his big dumb smile and shrugged, clearly deciding to stop while he was ahead for once. “I guess I’m gonna, you know. Get off of your roof now.”

“Okay,” Eddie said simply, only stopping Richie when he turned to go. “Hey, Rich?”

 

Richie turned. “Yeah?”

 

“Dare ya to kiss me.”


	2. Bad Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was just a dream.

The air was warm and thick and smelled fresh despite the chill of the rain that fell and the stench of copper. It soaked every inch of Georgie and threatened to sweep him away if he didn't move, if he didn't get away and  _fast_. 

Georgie tried his best to crawl away but he just  _couldn't._ It was raining so hard, and his arm- he just couldn't scramble away with one. He was afraid, so afraid, there was something behind him and he couldn't  _move_ and his little pulse drummed in his ears. Frantically he tried to move, to scream, anything to escape. 

Clammy hands wrapped around his ankle and-

 

Georgie shot up in bed, panting and afraid and  _freezing_.

 

"Juh-juh-Georgie?" Billy was standing in his doorway, clearly worried despite how ill he was. "You w-were s-screaming."

 

"I had a bad dream," Georgie whimpered, holding the arm he had thought lost to him.

 

Billy gestured for him to move over and Georgie gladly did, feeling braver with Billy beside him. The rain still pelted the windows and Georgie swallowed hard. It was just a dream, it was just a dream.

 

But he was so cold and everything smelled like popcorn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> list of things that georgie did not deserve: fucking THAT
> 
> come say hi on tumblr @townofderry im lonely


	3. Georgie Survives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a prompt from baronvonhookhand for a story where georgie survives and relies on bill for comfort. tbh, i love this idea so much that i might expand on it into a full length fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didnt post a drabble yesterday because i spent the entire day in a nyquil induced coma. this is rough and unedited, like everything else :') im also behind on letters to richie updates lmaooo i hate me but ily guys

“Billy?”

  


It was just a whisper, barely a breath and hardly audible over their footsteps. At first Bill didn’t turn, not because he wasn’t sure that he’d heard it, he very much had, and the others had as well judging by the way that they froze at his side. He didn’t turn because he was afraid, afraid that he would turn around and the nightmare wouldn’t be over, afraid that he would have to face down Georgie once more and he just...he just didn’t know if he could. 

“Bill,” It was Stan’s gasp that made him open his eyes and turn.

The door to Pennywise’s hellish lair swung open and a small shadow appeared in the dying light.

“Jesus fuck,” Richie breathed.

“Shit,” Eddie swallowed, wary.

“Is it….?” Mike whispered, too wary to be hopeful but they had all seen the clown fall. They had all seen the bodies float down. Had it all been just another trick?

The little shadow crept forward into the dim light and Bill’s breath left his lungs.

He was dirty, half starved, his little eyes sunken into his head and wide with fear, but Georgie stood amidst the pile of grisly trophies, hugging himself with one arm, the only one that remained to him.

“You gotta go,” he whimpered, “he’ll come back.”

He broke into sobs as Bill ran to him and swept him up into his arms. “He’ll come back. He always comes back.”

“H-he’ll n-never hurt y-you again,” Bill swore and Georgie knew that he meant it, but Billy was only a boy and the clown was something worse, something much much worse and it had decided that it wanted them.

  
  


He woke up in a hospital. He knew it was a hospital because he had visited Stanley in the hospital one time with Billy when Stan had his tonsils removed and this room looked just like that one. His mom was there, and his dad and a of nurses and they were all crying and asking him questions.

“Where’s Billy?” Georgie asked them as his mom cradled his face and her tears dripped onto his nose. 

“R-right here, Juh-Georgie,” he heard Billy say and then he was standing over him, their mom gently moved aside. “I’m r-right here.”

“Don’t leave,” Georgie begged weakly, exhausted.

“I w-won’t.” And he didn’t.

  


People began to ask him all sorts of questions are he got stronger, but no one seemed to hear his answers. He told the doctors that a clown had bitten his arm off, but they all laughed at that and decided it had been a bear or something else. His parents asked where he had been, what happened to him but when he tried to tell them what happened to him, but they just cried and squeezed him and  whispered over his head about trauma and nightmares and then they squeezed him some more and told him how happy they were that he was home. Even the policeman ignored him, even when he told them about the bodies in the sewers.

“It’s a rainy town,” the policeman shrugged, “lots of things wind up in the sewers.”

It made him feel cold all over and when he looked at Bill he knew that Bill felt it too, the same chill that soaks all the way into your bones on a wet day, It had gotten all of the adults somehow too.

  


Of course Georgie had been happy to see his mom and dad after months of being afraid and alone in the dark, but they didn’t believe him just like Pennywise said they wouldn’t. They were just happy to have him home and they wanted him to be happy too and he was, he was so happy, but he was also afraid and he didn’t understand why sometimes that made them angry. 

  


“It’s l-like with m-me,” Billy explained to him one day, “th-they w-want you to be b-better. It’s easy for th-them, b-because n-nothing happened t-to th-them. Th-they l-look t m-me and w-wonder w-why I c-can’t j-just sp-spit it out and w-with y-you th-they j-just w-want you t-to b-be happy th-that y-you’re home. Th-they l-love y-you, th-they j-just d-don’t understand.”

  


That made Georgie feel a little better. Billy always had this way of seeing and helping other people to see and he understood better than anyone that Georgie’s sudden bouts of rage were panic and fear. 

From the moment they had returned home from the hospital, Bill’s door had never been closed because he knew that Georgie might need him and he wanted Georgie to know that he was welcome. Sure enough, every night Georgie would crawl into his big brother’s bed. He had become braver with Bill around. No one could hurt him if they were together, but somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a laugh that wasn’t his and a whisper telling him that that wasn’t true.

  


“He liked my fear,” he confided one night when they were both nearly asleep. “He said that I had the sweetest fear and- and-,” he began to sob too hard to finish and Bill pulled him close and tucked his head under his chin but Georgie knew that he was crying too. 

“N-never again,” he swore.

  
  


Just like he’d never believed him to be gone, Billy never left him behind. Even when he was out with his older friends, he always included Georgie and it was almost just like old times, except better because Billy and Eddie and Stanley and Richie were there but there were new friends too and one of them was even a girl and she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen except for his mom. 

Georgie took a quick liking to Mike. Mike was the gentlest of them all and always had the best stories and usually came around with a book in hand and he helped Georgie sound out the words.

None of them stared at his arm, either, at least not where he could see and he was thankful for that too. He didn’t like being reminded that it was gone, in some clown’s belly in the sewer instead of where it belonged. 

“You’re practically a super hero,” Eddie told him one day as they were thumbing through a pamphlet on prosthetics that the doctor had sent home with him. “Look, you’re even getting a bionic arm. How cool is that?”

“Pretty cool, I guess,” Georgie admitted, and suddenly losing an arm didn’t seem so bad even though it still itched sometimes and he didn’t know how to scratch what wasn’t there. In little moments like that, Georgie could believe that he was alright and that his nightmare was over. His peace existed in those little moments at Bill’s side, or surrounded by his friends, in the bright of day but when the night came and everything was dark, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

  


“The inside,” Georgie said one day, lulled by the soft breeze and soft swaying of the meadow grass. “He made it look like my room.”

  


He wasn’t sure what made him think of it, or why he’d said it. He hardly ever talked about what happened to him down there, what the clown had done to him, but these people knew. They wouldn’t laugh it off or dismiss him.

  


“It even had the same wallpaper with the silly clowns, and all of my toys, only they would suddenly turn into something awful like a foot or they would melt into blood in my hand and sometimes he would tell me that I could go home, all I had to do was walk out of the door but the door kept getting further and further and-” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say that sometimes he saw his mom and dad having forgotten him, saw Billy storming into the lair to save him only to be eaten by the clown.  

  


Billy’s arms wrapped around him before his panic could overtake him and Georgie took deep breaths, just like Stanley had shown him. One by one, the other ‘losers’ wrapped their arms around him too.

  


“I’ll n-never let him t-take you again, Juh-Georgie,” Bill swore. “N-never.”

“None of us will,” Richie and Eddie said together.

“If he ever comes back, we’ll come back,” Stan said determinedly, “and put an end to It, before he hurts anyone else.”

Georgie watched as they cut their hands and swore to return no matter where they wound up. It was warm and broad daylight, but suddenly Georgie felt cold, almost like the clown had wanted this but he felt a little better knowing that what happened to him won’t happen to another kid who might not have a big brother to save them.

And there was seven of them, and seven was lucky. Mike had been telling him all about the power of numbers and it made Georgie feel that much better being around them.

  


But then Beverly moved, and then Richie, and then Ben, then Eddie, and for a while it was just him and Billy and Stanley and Mike but then Stanley moved too and that night Georgie held onto Billy a little tighter.

  


“I w-won’t leave you,” Bill swore, as if he already knew what was bothering Georgie. Georgie knew it was true. Billy hadn’t left him yet and he hadn’t let anyone take him away, even when their parents tried to suggest that Georgie start sleeping in his own room again.

  


“I know,” Georgie said, “I know you won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr! @townofderry
> 
> i love crying about found familes on bikes and take fic requests


End file.
